


What Dorothy Tells Him

by C_amara_deriee



Series: What She Tells Him [1]
Category: Emerald City (TV 2016)
Genre: Brown Eyes, Child Abuse, Dorothy's had a hard life, F/M, Gen, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, almost character study, also, but more like Lucas just falling desperatly in love with Dorothy, insecure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9849839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_amara_deriee/pseuds/C_amara_deriee
Summary: Dorothy tells Lucas a lot of things. Lucas may not always agree, but he does listen.Ch1: Dorothy once told Lucas that most people don’t notice falling in love. Lucas doesn’t believe any of it. Before Lucas knew anything else in this world, he knew love.Ch2: Dorothy says she really isn’t very complicated. When she does this, Lucas wants to take her face in his hands and tell her every single reason why she is dead wrong.Ch3: It isn’t until Dorothy admits “I always wished I had blue eyes” that he learns why she can’t stand to look in any mirror longer than a second. Lucas had always loved brown eyes. He can’t imagine them not being someone’s favorite.





	1. Slowly in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorothy once told Lucas that most people don’t notice falling in love. They just wake up one morning and looks over and thinks “Oh, hey. I love this person.” That people either fall in love suddenly or not at all.  
> Lucas doesn’t believe any of it. He knows he was fully aware of every step of falling in love. Before Lucas knew anything else in this world, he knew love.

Dorothy once told Lucas that most people don’t notice falling in love. She told him this with a faraway look on her face, eyebrows crunched. She told him this in the same way someone tells their child happy endings aren’t real, with a sad determination, like they themselves still hold the believe somewhere deep inside. She told him that, usually, a person doesn’t have a choice. They just wake up one morning and look over and think, “Oh, hey. I love this person.” That people either fall in love suddenly or not at all.

Lucas doesn’t believe any of it. He knows he was fully aware of every step of falling in love. He was aware of it from the first time he opened his eyes and saw Love’s beautiful face looking down on him. He was aware of the skip in his heartbeat. He was aware of the pain of his arms and legs vanishing, and warmth and reassurance filling the space left behind. He was aware as a part in his brain, a brain he knew very little of personally, was segmented so he could keep a tally on moments like this. Before Lucas knew anything else in this world, he knew love.

It starts small, as most everything does. For Lucas, it starts with bandages and touches. It starts when the dirtied angel above him hurriedly wraps his injured side in white cloth. Lucas watches her work her magic, and when she’s done, he does feel remarkably better. He watches as this furious woman, anger and frustration present in every jerky movement she makes, gently lifts him into an upright position and tend his wounds with the mildest of touches.

When she speaks to him, none of the festering frustration he sees swimming in her eyes shows in her voice. She speaks to him like he’s someone, even when neither of them know if he really is. When he reluctantly tells her he remembers nothing, is nothing, she continues to treat him as if he hadn’t spoken in the first place. When she asks him questions about this world so strange to her, only slightly less strange to him, and he cannot answer, she does not admonish him the way he does to himself.

Lucas loves how Dorothy sees the good in him. Her belief in him never falters. She keeps his head afloat when he is sure he is drowning.

Not even when he loses control and lashes out at the woman who tried to poison him and hurt Dorothy, does Dorothy look at him any different. He strikes the woman down, terrified that if he doesn’t, the woman may rise up and harm his Dorothy. And yet still, when the deed is done, and he looks up at Dorothy, he sees the flicker of hesitation in her eyes, but it is not directed at him. She contemplates only the body lying below them. She is never in fear Lucas will turn on her.

Once, while they are both taking a short break from traveling the accursed yellow road, he asks Dorothy why she never questions his actions. She throws him a withering look and asks him what kind of question that even is.  She tells Lucas he is her reminder of good in the world. She says more, launches into a speech of sorts, and Lucas hangs onto every word, but the thing Lucas clings to most is that Dorothy thinks he is a good man. She trusts him.

Lucas doesn’t believe people fall in love suddenly, because he knows he didn’t. He knew exactly when and why each part of his shattered mind affirmed themselves to Dorothy. Between her unwavering faith, tender care, and senseless concern for his well-being, he had no choice but to fall for her.


	2. Enigma of Contradictions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, when Lucas asks her question after question about the things she loves, Dorothy will laugh and tell him that she really isn’t very complicated. She’s soft when she says it, laughing a little self-depreciating and smiling sweetly at him.  
> When she does this, Lucas wants to take her face in his hands and tell her everything he sees in her. He wants to tell he every single reason why she is dead wrong.

Sometimes, when Lucas asks her question after question about the things she loves, Dorothy will laugh at him and tell him that she really isn’t very complicated. She’s soft when she says it, laughing a little self-depreciating and smiling sweetly at him.

When she does this, Lucas wants to take her face in his hands and tell her everything he sees in her. He wants to tell her every single reason why she is dead wrong.

Lucas wants to tell Dorothy that she is an enigma of contradictions. He wants to tell her how he learns all he can about her and her past and her way of thinking, and yet is _still_ surprised by her choices. He can expect that she will always protect the ones she loves, yet her ideas of what that protection entails differs from moment to moment and is never what he supposes.

He wants to find a way to put into words the fire he sees burning behind her eyes. The flames that writhe and spark behind their glossy prison. How he is astounded when he watches her viciously attack their foes, then flip a switch and tenderly patch him up after the battle. Her careful ministrations always in complete contract with the tense way she holds herself.

If only he could manage to tell her that her bravery is unparalleled to anything he’s ever seen. He sees the fear she feels in the twitch of her lip and tremble of her hands. He knows she worries much more than her calm exterior lets on. The fact she holds hesitation, yet still perseveres despite this, is more impressive than if she felt no fear at all. Her courage, whether illusory or real, gives him strength.

He wishes for the words to describe her courage. How, even when they are both terrified, or hopelessly out of their depth, or betrayed time and time again, she remains determined. He finds it impossible to imagine how she remains so assured even in their darkest moments. Where he loses his way and calmly accepts his fate, she desperately searches for another way. She never loses her belief, never wavers. She is the greatest hope he can ask for. He can’t imagine from what depths she plucks it from. If he could explain to her that she grounds him even in his most lost, perhaps Dorothy could see herself as he sees her.

As someone who places her hope even in complete strangers, Dorothy doesn’t let people break through her carefully contrasted persona easily. But when she trusts, she trusts foolishly and wholeheartedly. Where Lucas advises suspicion, Dorothy offers only blind trust. She distrusts not as a default, the way Lucas must have been taught to, but as a failsafe. He knows she has been lied to, has even watched it happen, but despite the sting of betrayal, she continues to give strangers the benefit of the doubt. Lucas cannot fathom how this can be, but he vows to never take it for granted.

If she were ‘simple’ as she believed, then how could Lucas have such an impossible time figuring her out? She is made up of direct contradictions. Predictable, yet surprising. Merciless, yet compassionate. Lost, yet determined. Cautious and careless. Every part of her should cancel out the other, yet they work together in perfect harmony to create the greatest woman Lucas could imagine.


	3. Brown Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn’t until she stops in front of small puddle and admits more to her reflection than to him, “I always wished I had blue eyes, instead of... _these_ ,” spitting the word like a curse, that he learns why Dorothy can’t stand to look in any mirror longer than a second. Lucas had always loved brown eyes. He can’t imagine them not being someone’s favorite.

It isn’t until she stops in front of small puddle and admits more to her reflection than to him, “I always wished I had blue eyes, instead of... _these_ ,” spitting the word like a curse, that he learns why Dorothy can’t stand to look in any mirror longer than a second.

Lucas had always loved brown eyes. Okay, well, considering how his concept of ‘always’ only consisted of a little more than a month, that didn’t mean much, but he was certain they were his favorite now. He can’t imagine them _not_ being someone’s favorite.

Pools of liquid amber had been the first thing he’d seen upon opening his own sapphire eyes in this new life, and they’d been everywhere he’d looked ever since. In the bark of the trees that provided shade, and the roots of the ground that provided food. Cocoa brown was present in the wood of the walls that made up people’s homes and in the spices that flavored tasty sweets. Brown was the color he found in life and security.

Brown eyes were on the many faces in Dorothy and his trips, both on the roads and in the cities. So many faces, with freckles and scars and big noses and small, but the ones that stood out to Lucas most were those with brown eyes. Like a moth to a flame, his attention was drawn to those with striking features, and nothing is more outstanding than the contrast between soft skin and bold eyes.

If he could trade his own cobalt eyes for the burnished copper color of brown eyes, he would. How could his pale optics compare to the soulful, bottomless intellect of brown eyes? His blue eyes don’t smolder in the sunset like Dorothy’s do. His eyes don’t caramelize and shine with beams of molten gold from the setting sun the way Dorothy’s do. He’s fairly sure the flames from the nightly fire don’t reflect in his eyes and mix with his inner fire until it is nearly impossible to differentiate the external flames from the internal ones the way they do in Dorothy’s.

Lucas could stare into Dorothy’s brown eyes for decades and never grow tired of the patterns of gold woven into liquid cinnamon. Could never map the designs in her irises.

Brown eyes were the first thing he remembers seeing upon waking up in this world. They provided him safety when he needed it most, and they remain to be the most beautiful thing he’s seen since.

“I love brown eyes,” he tells her softly, "they're the color of home." He intertwines his hand in hers and pulls her away from the puddle.

Lucas doesn’t understand how Dorothy could dislike her eyes, but he’s happy to verbalize his love for them until she starts to believe him.


End file.
